Tens of thousands of patients have had their operations shelved at the last minute as the NHS slumped to its worst performance in a decade, it was revealed today.

More than 20,000 operations were cancelled by NHS hospitals in England during the last quarter.

Figures released by NHS England show 20,464 operations were cancelled at the last minute for non-clinical reasons from January to the end of March.

During the same period in 2013/14, there were 17,868 cancelled operations.

It is the highest number since the last quarter of 2004/5, when patients saw 21,500 operations cancelled.

Hospitals are experiencing growing bed shortages, with too many patients being admitted because of a lack of care in the community, and ending up stuck in hospital because there is no help available in their home.

The figures will prove embarrassing for Jeremy Hunt, who was only reappointed as Health Secretary on Monday.

The Tories have pledged to increase NHS funding, by an extra £8bn a year by 2020. But the latest figures show problems are continuing to grow.

When a patient’s operation is cancelled by the hospital at the last minute for non-clinical reasons, the hospital should offer another date within a maximum of 28 days, or fund the patient’s treatment at the time and hospital of their choice.

But figures show that nearly one in 10 - 8.7% or 1,787 - patients did not go on to be treated within the pledged time.

This was the highest figure since the first quarter of 2005/06, when 1,959 were not treated within 28 days.

Embarrassment: Jeremy Hunt has just been reappointed as Health Secretary

Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust cancelled the most operations - 648 - followed by Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, with 526.

An NHS England spokesman said: “Cancellations should be avoided wherever possible as we recognise the concerns that patients face when this happens.

“However, the level of cancellations in this quarter has remained low in the context of the millions of operations performed in the NHS each year, and the unprecedented level of demand we have seen across the whole health system this winter.”

Separately, the waiting time targets for patients going to A&E departments in England have been breached for the 32nd week in a row, according to the latest figures released today.

NHS England said 93.4% of patients spent four hours or less from arrival to admission, transfer or discharge last week.

This was a dip on the last couple of weeks, when figures had been their best since early October. The target is 95%.

During the previous week 94.1% were seen within the time frame and 94.3% were a week earlier, but the target has not actually been met since the week ending September 28.

Cancelled: Tens of thousands of appointments were called off late (Image: Getty)

There were 444,400 attendances at A&E in the week ending May 10 - up from 433,300 the previous week.

Of these, 106,000 were emergency admissions, a jump from 107,800 a week earlier.

The amount of emergency admissions who had to wait more than four hours was 6,600, compared with 5,400 the previous week.

There was also a rise in the number of people spending more than 12 hours waiting from decision to admit to admission, with 13 people forced to wait this long, compared with four a week earlier.

An NHS England spokesman said: “These latest figures show our frontline staff continue to deliver an excellent service while coming under sustained pressure.”

Meanwhile, Mr Hunt faced calls from leading doctors to abandon key Tory manifesto commitments and focus on tackling the crisis in general practice.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association’s GPs committee, called on the Health Secretary to scrap “unrealistic” and “populist” access plans.

The Tory party has promised 8am to 8pm, seven-day access for every patient in England by 2020, and same-day appointments for over 75s.

Dr Nagpaul said the crisis in the GP workforce and workload meant Mr Hunt should “jettison the populist pledges and deal with the harsh, bleak reality that we simply don’t have a general practice workforce that can meet current pressures”.